Introduction

As the global OJS community increases, the need to customize individual journals using our open source software has become increasingly important. This document provides a brief overview of a few customizations to your OJS 2.x journal, including:

Changing the Header

Changing the Background Colour and Fonts

Adding a Unique Image for Each Issue

Adding Navigation Links

Providing News and Updates

Integrating Blogs, Wikis, Forums and More

Adding a Multilingual Interface

Adding a Splash Screen

Adding MP3 Support

First Things First: The Look

The Journal Manager can manipulate various aspects of the look of an OJS journal, without knowing very much in the way of css or HTML. There is a page devoted specifically to changing a journal's look, found under User Home --> Journal Manager --> Setup --> Step 5: The Look. The following instructions in this section all relate to this page.

Modifying the Journal Homepage Header

Under Step 5.1: Journal Homepage Header, you can upload header images and logos, or otherwise edit the header text, for the journal's home page.

You have to choose between using a text title or an image at the top of your homepage by toggling the radio button between each. Any text you enter under the Text Title will appear at the top of your home page; if you choose to use a title image instead, any banner image you upload here will appear in its place.

You can also upload a logo, which will appear to the left of the title text or image.

Keep in mind that the default header width is 820px, which would include both a logo and a title image, if uploaded; uploaded images should be sized to fit reasonably well within these constraints.

Adding Homepage Content

Under step 5.2: Adding Journal Homepage Content, you'll find you can add various different static and dynamic features to your journal's home page.

Firstly, in the Journal Description text box, you can add a brief, 20-25 word description of your journal.

You can then upload an image to be displayed on your home page. This can be anything, but common uses would be for issue covers.

Then follows a checkbox for adding the journal's current table of contents to the main page. This will include links to the abstracts and articles.

Finally, a larger input field will allow you to add more information. This is a good place to add general information that is not updated often. You can use limited HTML in this text box.

Modifying the Journal Page Header

Section 5.3: Journal Page Header can be customized in the same fashion as Section 5.1 as explained previously; but in addition, there is the option of uploading an HTML version of the header. Whatever HTML you enter here will appear in the header block at the top of every journal page after the home page. This is handy if your journal has a secondary header image that you would like to use, for example.

The Journal Page Footer

You can enter text/HTML information into the text box under Step 5.4: Journal Page Footer, which will appear at the bottom of every page. It may be useful to enter simple journal contact and copyright information here, or possibly the journal's ISSN number(s).

Adding a New Navigation Bar Item

Under Section 5.5: Navigation Bar, you can add a Navigation Bar link to the current set at the top of every journal page. This can be an in-site link (for example, linking directly to a Submission page), or an external link (linking to a journal sponsor's website).

An interesting use of additional navigation links is to add a blog or wiki for your journal, allowing for more interaction with your readers, and the development of an online community.

Packaged Themes and Layout

Under Step 5.6: Journal Layout, you have the option of switching between provided themes, uploading your own stylesheet, and moving journal blocks around. Uploading your own stylesheet will be dealt with later, as it this function can become a little bit more complex.

Changing Themes

OJS 2.2 comes with a number of themes that you can use. These themes will change the site colours, but will not affect layout. Follow these steps to switch your theme:

Log in as Journal Manager, and navigate to User Home --> Journal Manager --> Setup --> Step 5: The Look.

Scroll down to step 5.6 Journal Layout.

Choose your new theme from the drop-down menu beside Journal Theme.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and Continue; your new theme should now be set.

You can find a list of themes, complete with images and download links, from [1].

Enabling the Left Sidebar and Moving Blocks

A new OJS install has a typical default structure: it has a header space, a central content area, and a right sidebar. Sidebar content is organized into structural 'blocks', and these blocks can be moved from left to right sidebars, or even disabled.

You'll notice that under step 5.6 Journal Layout, there are fields for both the left and right sidebar, and one for unselected items. There are also a number of blocks, including a "Developed by" block, a help block, etc. These blocks start in the right sidebar field by default, but can be moved to the left by highlighting the block to be moved and clicking the left-and-right arrows until the block is where you want it. Blocks can also be organized vertically within the sidebars, by highlighting the block to be moved and clicking either of the up and down arrows.

In the following two images, you can see blocks being moved from the right to left sidebars:

... and the ensuing results on the journal home page:

If you assign a block to the middle 'unselected' field, it will not appear on your site.

You can highlight more than one block to move at a time; and you can use the 'big arrow' buttons at the bottom of the 'unselected' field to move items directly from one sidebar to another.

If a sidebar is empty, it disappears and the resulting free space is taken by the middle content block.

You have to scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save and Continue" for your changes to be recorded.

Information for Librarians, Readers and Authors

By default, OJS displays very open and general information for librarians, authors and readers on the right sidebar. You can edit this information under Step 5.7: Information.

Lists

By default, OJS limits the maximum number of items per page to 25, and the number of page links to 10. You can edit this default under Step 5.8: Lists.

Although you can't see all 25 items in the following list example, you can see how the number of pages has been limited to 10, event though this journal has published more than 250 articles. If a user clicks on the 10th page link, the pages 5 thru 14 will be linked to from the bottom of the resulting page, while the 25 results for that page will be displayed.

Stylesheet Modifications

A newly installed version of OJS comes with a default style sheet, with an attractive choice of colours and fonts. In addition, themes can be enabled to modify colours site-wide. If you want to make further changes, however, you will have to create and upload your own stylesheet.

Notice the extensive colour changes made for Critical Studies in Improvisation ([2]):

This journal accomplished most of the changes you see by uploading a new stylesheet.

Stylesheet Locations

OJS links to many different stylesheets at any one time. This is the typical order in which stylesheets are called, if they are all enabled:

common.css: every journal uses this stylesheet, and it can be found in the styles/ directory.

sidebar.css, leftSidebar.css, rightSidebar.css, and bothSidebars.css: these can be found within the styles/ directory as well; they apply structural rules to the sidebars, if being used.

(themeName).css: if you have enabled a theme from Setup: Step 5.6, the theme's stylesheet will be called next. The stylesheet for any particular theme comes from the theme title: the stylesheet for Classic Blue is classicBlue.css, for example. These theme stylesheets can be found in plugins/themes/(themeName)/.

journalStyleSheet.css: if you upload your own stylesheet, OJS renames it to journalStyleSheet.css and places it in your journal file directory (for example, in public/journals/1/journalStyleSheet.css for the first journal created with that particular OJS install).

fontSize stylesheets: there are three user-switchable stylesheets that control site-wide font size -- fontSmall.css, fontMedium.css, and fontLarge.css. They can be found in within the styles/ directory.

There are also location-specific stylesheets. These can be found in the styles/ directory:

articleView.css: called when an HTML article, abstract, or interstitial page is being viewed.

comments.css: called when comments are enabled and displayed.

help.css: used to style context-sensitive help pages that are displayed when a user clicks on "Journal Help".

rt.css: used to style the Research Tools sidebar, if enabled.

Changes made to one stylesheet can be overridden by another stylesheet. For example, since the fontSize css files are last in the listed order, they are processed last by your browser, and their rules are applied last, overriding every other stylesheet before it. This is good to keep in mind when it comes to troubleshooting. So long as you don't edit the already-existing stylesheets, and keep to uploading your own modifications, this shouldn't be a problem.

Making Style Changes

If you take a look at common.css, you'll notice that is has been broken down into the following sections:

Common HTML elements

Main layout elements

Navigation bar

Breadcrumbs

Additional text styles

Table styles

Form-specific elements

Other organizational elements

For basic changes, you'll want to find the element you want to change in common.css, examine the properties and values that have been defined, and then make a stylesheet that reflects the property and value changes you want to make.

For example, to change the body background colour and font, find the body entry (it is the very first one in common.css):

When you combine a journal header, the reorganization of some sidebar blocks, and a customized stylesheet, the results can be quite noticeable:

If you have some experience working with style sheets, you will be able to make extensive customizations to the "look and feel" of your new journal.

Miscellany

Adding a Unique Image for Each Issue

Another interesting enhancement is to add a unique cover image to each issue of your journal. This, of course, requires a sustainable source of artwork!

The journal Postcolonial Text ([3]) makes good use of this feature in their version of OJS:

These images are added when each issue is created by the Editor. There is also the option at the time of issue creation to upload an issue-specific stylesheet, as well as an image caption.

Announcements

The front page of a journal can be used as a communication space with your readers, announcing new information about your journal by using the included Announcements module. This module can be enabled by the Journal Manager in Step 4.4: Journal Announcements, and will appear as a link in the Navigation Bar, and optionally on the home page.

Only Journal Managers can add announcements. You can control how many announcements appear on the home page, if any.

Adding a Multilingual Interface

OJS supports several languages, such as English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Translations are also underway for more languages in the near future. This allows your readers to have all of the links, text, and help files in their own language.

You can make your journal unilingual in any of the languages supported by OJS, or you can make your journal multilingual, by activating a drop-down language selector.

To do this, your Site Administrator will need to install Languages from the Site Management menu. From here, the Site Administrator must install any available languages to use with the journal, check them off as supported by the journal.

Second, the Journal Manager must activate the all of the languages you wish to support, under User Home --> Journal Management --> Languages.

If more than one language is enabled, users will be able to use a drop-down menu on the sidebar to choose a preferred journal-wide display language. There will also be the option of entering text in different languages where appropriate, such as throughout the Journal Setup process, and when authors submit an article for consideration.

Adding a Splash Screen

Another way to add some artistic appeal to your journal is by adding a splash screen, which appears before users are taken to the journal. Cosmos and History ([4]) provides a very nice example of this:

Which leads, in turn, to their main page:

This is done by simply creating an index.html file for the splash screen, and adding a link to the journal home page. In this case, the link is labelled "enter site".

Comment: If you are using RESTFULL urls, you will need to modify your .htaccess with something like:

RewriteRule ^myMagazine$ myMagazine/

RewriteRule ^myMagazine/$ myMagazine/index.html

Adding MP3 Support

An innovative customization from The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning ([5]) is the addition of audio versions of their articles, using MP3 files:

The audio files were recorded outside of the OJS system, but were uploaded as supplementary files, associated with each article. This was done by the Section Editor, in the Submissions Summary section. Other types of files can be added, including video.

These could also be added by the author, as part of their submission process.